This week I am cutting off my nose to spite my face, actively hoping that I am also presenting reality in a way that cannot be ignored. If one talks a talk about caring and compassion and teamwork, but walks a walk of superficial, pretentious ignorance, (ignorance in this case being unaware, heedless, negligent, oblivious, unconcerned), and they are presented with graphic, indisputable, impossible-to-ignore evidence of their walk, (i.e. the bloody stump of a nose), perhaps next time more care will be taken. Also, perhaps not. Some choose to be consciously unaware, others are unaware because they are unable to hear or see beyond the noise that is their own self-importance, and of those remaining who are willing to put forth more effort I believe a majority of this minority are trapped in circumstance that compels them to prioritize self-interest over compassion or change for the better.

So far this year I have been pounding this drum of the subservience of Beauty-Truth-Wisdom-Justice to bureaucracy-convention-certainty-division, and the helplessness of individuals to make any kind of a meaningful difference, other than individually. So if my only option is to actively hope by acknowledging and working within my personal insignificance, and by continuing to learn and think and improve, and by occasionally presenting a bloody stump, then so be it.

That said, I will continue to choose personal difficulty or discomfort over making imperious demands of others no matter their degree of ignorance. My imperious demands will only justify another’s self-importance, whereas my bloody stump, (be it in the interest of justice or as a reminder of my relative insignificance), will point to the greater significant necessity of all of Humanity as a whole. Most will choose to not see where I point, but some may and I will. I experience more freedom, see more beauty, come closer to Truth, gain more wisdom, and walk more parallel with Justice in the throes of adversity, effort, struggle than I ever will in the comfort of my recliner watching Netflix; or in the comfort of my corner office (with a window) giving orders; or in the comfort of my smug certainty judging others. To have compassion one must first suffer.

This week I am reading “A Blaze of Glory” from Jeff Shaara, a fictional account of the Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862; a Civil War battle that took nearly 3500 American lives and claimed more than 23,000 casualties. On the first day, shortly before he was killed, General Albert Sidney Johnston was watching a doctor at work on the battlefield. Picking up the narrative on page 285: “Johnston turned away, thought of the blood he had already seen this day, so many fallen men, disfigured and broken, so many beyond the reach of anything a doctor could do. I cannot see that, he thought. I cannot mourn, even for a moment, the loss of a soldier. It is my duty, after all, to regard this army as a single force, a single being. The whole, always the most important thing.”

This is the ultimate bloody stump; a soldier following orders to his death. And to his credit, General Albert Sidney Johnston’s talk is consistent with his walk. And perhaps that is what disturbs me most – we have not changed our methods, soldiers following orders from officers, but we have changed our reality, pretending we’re all in this together. General Albert Sidney Johnston was an exception; a leader who knew he was a leader but was also willing to follow. Our leaders today pretend to be followers and pretend not to be leaders, and from there are very ineffective. Some say General Johnston would have made a bigger difference in the outcome of the Battle of Shiloh if he would have continued to lead from the rear and not become a follower of his own leadership. I would argue that he would not have been as effective unwilling to follow; he would have become what he despised. And perhaps that explains our circumstance today; those leaders also willing to follow, (who would be more effective leading change for the better), are chewed up and spit out by a system that rewards status quo, leaving leaders who can only pretend.